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Shirley Anne Field was born Shirley Broomfield, in Forest Gate, London. She was the third of four children, with two elder sisters and a younger brother, Earnest "Guy" Broomfield (c. 1938-1999). Guy Broomfield was murdered in 1999 by Harry Dalsey, the son of Adrian Dalsey.[3][4]

At the age of six, Shirley was placed in the National Children's Home at Edgworth, near Bolton, and four years later was moved to another children's home in Blackburn, where she attended Blakey Moor School for Girls. She subsequently returned to Edgworth until she was 15, when she moved to a children's home hostel in London, training as a typist while still attending school.

After a course at the Lucie Clayton School and Model Agency, she became a photographic model for pin-up magazines like Reveille and Titbits. She was subsequently spotted by Bill Watts, who ran a theatrical agency and obtained for her a number of uncredited extra roles in various late 1950s British films. Her first appearance in a film was as an extra in Simon and Laura (1955), but her breakthrough came in 1960 when she was chosen by Laurence Olivier to play the role of model Tina Lapford in The Entertainer. That same year, she appeared in probably her best known role, as Doreen, the would-be girlfriend of rebellious Arthur Seaton (played by Albert Finney), in the influential New Wave film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Co-star Finney had previously had a small role in The Entertainer. During the 1970s, she spent some time working in stage roles before returning to films and television, in both the US and UK, in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

She married the aristocraticRAF pilot and racing driver Charles Crichton-Stuart (1939–2001) on 7 July 1967 and they had a daughter, Nicola Crichton-Stuart, who was born the same year. The marriage ended in divorce during the late 1970s. She wrote her autobiography A Time for Love (1991).[5]